On a recent trip to the gargantuan Suzhou Industrial Park, a beautiful region designed with Singapore as inspiration, I went into a popular supermarket, Hao You Duo (好又多), where I saw the strangest Chinglish I’ve seen so far. The store have numerous large posters hanging over the escalator ramps and other regions to celebrate the Chinese New Year and the Year of the Horse. The Chinese just says “wish you a great new year” and “lucky year of the horse.” Whoever entered the English translation was the laziest typist of all time. Looks like he or she set one hand down on the keyboard and just wiggled their fingers a few times on the same keys, over and over. Finished.

What amazes me is that this large supermarket chain spent a lot of money to produce these beautiful posters and then print, distribute, and hang hundreds of them (I presume these are all over their stores across China)–all without bothering to ask anyone with any English skills at all if the English was OK. In fact, every educated person in China at least understands the alphabet in order to use pinyin for typing email, and anyone who understands the alphabet ought to know that words generally need some kind of vowel, don’t they? No one noticed. No one cared. That is the secret to China’s most entertaining Chinglish.

Chinglish at Hao You Duo (好又多), Suzhou

Lazy Typist Creates Great Chinglish for a Major Chinese Supermarket, Hao You Duo (好又多). Photo from Suzhou Industrial Park, March 4, 2014

Microsoft has admitted to another critical flaw being exploited in “zero day” attacks in all versions of Microsoft Office programs, across all platforms, apparently even more serious than other recently announced critical flaws. The newly found Darn.Me/Curse.Me backdoor trojan program, first spotted causing havoc on Whitehouse computers, allows hackers to take over computers who open documents of any kind, from any source. The program is unusually malicious, typically allowing malicious hackers to steal the identity of users or, in several documented cases, their very soul. The souls of two victims are reportedly suffering eternal damnation already after accidentally opening a document infected with the Curse.Me variant of the trojan. The White House is not acknowledging who the affected parties are, but Federal security experts note that the infection has been reported among members of Congress, the Supreme Court, the Pentagon, and the New York Times, and may spread around the globe shortly. Technical support crews have been unable to retrieve the contents of the injected souls.

Microsoft does not have a patch for this vulnerability, and does not have plans in place to provide one, though an improved and more expensive version of Office will be announced soon that can be trusted “for sure this time,” according to a Microsoft spokesman who refused to take the bag off his head during the press conference. “For the present time,” he said, “we encourage users to avoid use of our software. Rather than risk loss of your identity or even your soul by using Word, Outlook, Internet Explorer, or any of our other leading products, it might be wise to take up bowling for the present time. Maybe some reruns on television. Reading is good, too.”

By Jeffrey Lindsay|
2016-10-24T05:58:02+00:00 September 7th, 2006|Categories: Humor, Satire|Comments Off on Microsoft Warns of New Critical Flaw in All Versions of Office: Eternal Souls at Risk

While I got a chuckle from the message of this business card that I picked up at an oriental grocery store recently, it made me realize that native English speakers could do a great service to their immigrant friends and acquaintances by simply offering to proofread materials that they might wish to print for their business. Ten seconds of proofreading would have made this business card more effective.

When it comes to offering help to our friends and neighbors with English as a second language, it’s time for more of us to step up and say, “We delivery!” Or words to that effect.

By Jeffrey Lindsay|
2016-10-24T05:58:02+00:00 September 4th, 2006|Categories: Hmong, Humor|Comments Off on Free Proofreading of Business Cards: One Easy Way to Help Your Immigrant Friends in 10 Seconds or Less

About Jeff Lindsay

Jeff Lindsay lives in Shanghai but has roots in Utah and Wisconsin. His interests include China and Chinese (the language and the food), intellectual property, chemical engineering, magic (a hobby), reading, writing, travel, photography, and his LDS faith.

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